


boundaries

by morethanprinceofcats



Category: Fantastic Four
Genre: Gothic Au, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morethanprinceofcats/pseuds/morethanprinceofcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[18th century gothic au] They may have tested the boundaries of time and space and suffered lightly being cursed by their communities as heretics and heathens, but when Richards admits his very limited understanding of human sexuality, Doom scoffingly offers to teach him.  Promptly they realize they are in over their heads.  For once the consequences of going too far might be more than they can handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	boundaries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



The sky outside was imposing and dark and grey; the shriek of a hawk had been heard earlier. Reed dozed, as he was beginning to see became a pattern when the man kept himself up very late, stimulated and lively, much past his usual hour, but was up well before noon nonetheless; not all these Western men lacked all discipline, and Victor would reluctantly and gravely admit that Richards was singularly probably the closest to a great man Victor would probably meet in his travels here.  
With all the progress that had been made last night, and the late hour they had been making it at, neither of them was overeager to resume working; both seemed to feel, without necessarily speaking of it, that they had earned a recess. So they spoke of their philosophies on life instead, in its more mediocre sense. Of course Reed opined that a man’s primary duty was to expand his intellect, for all the physical world existed for that purpose. Victor found this unsatisfying. Specifically, he agreed that the primary purpose of the physical world was the development of the mind, but then that the expansion of the mind served no purpose if one did not then use one’s intellect to operate great changes in the physical realm, say - in politics, for example. Western governments being what they were, of course Reed disagreed. He had no interest in politics. Victor knew his mind had to be guided in this area and turned the topic forcibly to ancient conquests, Alexander of Macedonia, and other men. Even the technological and architectural innovations, which may not have brought men to their knees, but literally carved the landscapes anew. Such power of the brain meant nothing if it did not return outward. Here Reed saw his point, and agreed, but confessed it did not interest him yet.  
Privately Victor saw this as the source of his roommate’s dullness. Even more privately, he did not find him altogether that dull anymore, but that was barely begrudged him.  
There were other aspects of the physical realm that could not be denied, however. The difference between a meager meal and a hearty one, sickness and health - even the difference between a sexually experienced man and a celibate one.  
Having just finished a particularly good meal of what was left of the pheasant they had killed the day before, and with his wintertime near brush with death - which so often went unspoken on yet was very frequently near the foremost of their thoughts - still fresh in memory, Reed agreed again, but balked, finally, at the last.  
“Monks are celibate for the purpose of devoting themselves to God,” he said, with an expressive hand gesture, touching his chest, near his heart, without seeming to recognize he had done anything at all (something sentimental, in fact). “They are distracted by the physical; their intellectual knowledge of Him is improved by their abstinence-”  
Victor scoffed and interrupted. “Or they are distracted by the physical which they lack. Perhaps some men have a willpower iron enough to resist; most do not.”  
“I disagree with you now, Victor. We have seen enough of our fellow man at university to know that the pressure of physical- the pursuit of physical pleasure puts many men off their studies.”  
“Many men; common men, more like. And common men may devote themselves to God, or science;” he continued dismissively. “But God and truth only reveal themselves to the few, the few capable of truly disciplined and hard study.”  
“This I must think on further. I believe many men, and perhaps all of them, with - early education, could achieve what you and I have- but I’m not certain.”  
“It’s sentiment, Richards.”  
“I have gleaned you only call me ‘Richards’ anymore when you are angered, though why a noble philosophy angers you-”  
“Nobility,” Victor repeated, voice low and eyes dark. Reed watched him thoughtfully, but his expression was, as ever, somewhat clinical.  
After an extended silence, now, the subject slightly cold and growing more interesting, they nonetheless returned to a different topic.  
“So you believe that most men are tormented both by the absence of physical pleasure and the presence of it, and that a balance must be achieved - rather than the poles of hedonism and denial.”  
Victor did not respond, but the lack of change in his ever watching expression was clearly his agreement, as he waited for Reed to catch up.  
“Hm. Interesting.”  
“But you do not agree.”  
“I have limited experience; I cannot agree or disagree. Perhaps, as you accuse me, I’ve neglected the physical realm, beyond my immediate experiments and study. I study the real to better understand the intangible; you know that.”  
“Your greatest weakness, Richards.” He was wrong; Victor did not only use the surname when angered, and he wasn’t angry now; charitable, he thought.  
“I did not realize that your experience was so great. Of course, your dark charms have had their way with women in the past-”  
Victor choked up, though Reed only froze and looked quizzical. It had been a long time since Reed had mentioned the complexion of his skin, and he had expected to put this behind them; he could hardly believe after more than a year of acquaintance, Richards could still not grasp the reality-altering concept that it did not matter-  
But never mind it now… of course he referred specifically to the very small number of women who had fluttered in his stare in Reed’s presence. Presumably Reed thought he pursued them. He thought quite wrong. Victor did not pursue the weak.  
“Far less than you suppose…. Richards,” he said, choosing his address carefully. “I have not felt it necessarily worth my time.”  
“Now I don’t understand you. First you say that a man must achieve a balance; now…”  
“You believe I have uttered some contradiction.”  
“I’m sure of it.”  
Victor stretched his limbs, just slightly, a tendon cracking in his neck, satisfyingly. “If a man eats a meager meal, a poorly constructed meal, which has little value to him, when he has no need of food, merely to satisfy his gluttony, what good will it do him?”  
Reed did not answer, and his expression was fixed, unyielding, and though he would not admit it much impossible to read.  
“Reed?”  
“I’m not seeing your point.”  
“Will it do a man good, Reed?” he asked, a little exasperated to repeat himself; it was a less impressive statement with the flow of it interrupted by Reed’s stubbornness.  
“Of course not, but I don’t see the point all the same.”  
“The man who partakes of physical experiences he does not require not for growth, pleasure or nutrition but to satisfy boredom, dulls himself as he would practicing a blade against wood. The careful selection of which pleasures will make a man sharper.”  
“You haven’t met a woman you have liked?”  
Victor coughed, annoyed. “It has been a long time. I have not met a worthy woman.”  
He hoped he would not hear the story of Reed’s painful adolescent experience, courting a woman who married another man and desired to remain friends, again; it was insipid and faintly unsettling from a man of logic. But Reed, if he was thinking about it - it was difficult to say, for while always thinking, of what was never obvious - did not mention it again.  
“Respectfully, Victor, it seems a matter you have little understanding of, though your hypothesis seems sound,” he said after a moment. “If you have rarely known pleasure, then it’s-”  
“I have known pleasure,” said Victor, in a grave voice which, to one who had known him long enough, was clearly affronted.  
“But recently, you have not.”  
Victor was not liking the turn this conversation had taken, and remained silent, when Reed, puzzling and frowning at him as usual, broke into a shallow laugh.  
The silence then expanded, as Victor understood his meaning immediately, a meaning he had not intended to make known all the same.  
“It’s a bit elaborate,” said Reed after a moment, “an elaborate explanation when you could have simply said, you have - satisfied your own needs, as many men do. It is a common practice, Victor-”  
“Then you have some concept,” said Victor, sourly, “of what I speak of, that - some pleasure is necessary, as lack becomes distracting- Now what, Reed? I can speak of it, and you cannot?” For now, Richards was cupping a hand over his nose, and looking downward.  
But when he looked up it was not with embarrassing guilt, shifty schoolboy glances; it was an uneasy and faintly lost expression.  
It came into Reed’s eyes rarely, and Victor could still not place or articulate its effect on him.  
“What do you mean? You mean to tell me… that you cannot as you have not?”  
The silence extended, and what had started as a seeming embarrassment, to confess that the bulk of one’s experience was solitary, had again become proof that he was the worldlier man of the two of them; first and foremost he was secure in his superiority, and secondly, in his disdain - and more powerfully his incredulity.  
“Have never?”  
“I know it is common, but to abstain is not uncommon-” Richards now protested, in a flat tone.  
“It is highly uncommon. Do you experience no desire?”  
The story he’d once told, the silly daydream of marriage seemed to suggest intentions, which suggested desire, but that did not seem proof enough.  
“I have experienced desire-”   
This protest, though the lack of emotional rise in his voice or alteration of expression was usual, had begun to turn his ears a pink color. This was somewhat satisfying on its own.  
“And never acted? Come, Richards. Do not exaggerate. To do a thing rarely, is still to do a thing…”  
“...if you do a thing rarely. If you do it not at all, you do not do it,” Reed completed, stubbornness mingled with a clear sense of self-consciousness.  
The silence between them was now both profound and comical. There had not been many comic moments since they had left the liveliness of university, as frustrating as that company had been, and while that element was to be savored, the discomfort of this topic could not be.  
“Reed, I cannot take this seriously. You have never…? Not at all?”  
“I was taught it was- It doesn’t interest me.”  
“Ah, you have lasting shame, then. From your stilted upbringing,” he said, an unpleasant aftertaste to the topic in Victor’s voice. Of course, the Richards’ parents, their joyless lives governed by a pale old man in the sky, had deprived their son of all meaningful private activity; he knew all had been forbidden Reed intellectually, but he had rebelled against that; why he had not rebelled against their physical restraints, however…  
“It’s not shame,” Reed protested, now somewhat vigorous - by his pale standards. “It’s - merely, a lack of interest. Desire is fleeting, it doesn’t interest me. There is no - no fire, no nobility in it-”  
“Again, nobility. A worthless measurement, Richards, and you use it to justify your fear-”  
“I am not afraid of touching myself,” he said, and the statement which was clearly intended to vehemently suggest how silly the topic was clearly and immediately embarrassed him; now there was a flush to the hollow cheeks as well. He thumbed idly at his tightly pressed lips, then drummed his hand liberally against the tabletop. More meekly, he finished, “I just don’t want to.”  
“There is a fire in it, perhaps not alone, but with a woman, Richards, a fire you sorely lack,” said Victor, now with an edge in his eyes. “Perhaps that woman, oh, yes, might have sensed it if you had only-”  
Reed was physically drawing away from the table now, likely in shock, and Victor caught him by the hand lest he actually stand and leave.   
“Women are animals as men are, as strong, as hard, as smart, as men are, a woman has every reason to sense in a man if he avoids pleasure, as he will likely not give her anyway."  
His broad hand was pressing down against Reed's thin one, and Reed now yanked his away, only to rap his knuckles again on the table repeatedly in agitation - hurting them, doubtless.  
"I merely object, Richards, to your presentation of yourself to me as a man who has pushed beyond all boundaries, yet cannot broach the boundary of the waistband of his trousers because a silly old man told him when he was a child that it was an affront to heaven."  
"It is not an important boundary," Richards argued, but now that the topic was being openly debated Victor was too interested to leave it alone. A few meaningless words along those lines passed between them before progress was made:   
"Even if it were important, it is not- it is nothing to simply be undergone, I cannot go and do it now, for your satisfaction."  
"Reed, it is for your satisfaction."  
"It would not satisfy me."  
"There are no women in the woods."  
"I did not mean that, and you knew it."  
"You can do it in the next room, and say you have accomplished something. Perhaps a greater victory than many others - a man must learn self-control before he can hope to amount to anything in other portions of his life."  
"It is hardly a thing for the light of day-"  
"Shame again?"  
"It isn't shame. It is just - gauche."  
"Boys satisfy themselves by night, and men who are familiar with it, but undertaken with a strong head, and a firm grip-" He coughed into the pale flat palm of his hand, a devious cough, which, and he was proud of Reed in this for in matters of humor and subtlety he was generally quite dense, Reed frowned at him over.  
"That wasn't necessary, Victor. I see your point, though its point still eludes me. To prove to you I am not afraid of small things, the thing must clearly be done in day."  
"Why would it not be? Would you rather go about it as the conquest of a new topic, rationally and straightaway, and then dismiss it as a new task learned, in daylight, or-" He spread his hands. "In your bed by nightfall, like an uncertain schoolboy, to report a dirty secret-"  
"All right," said Reed, startled and slightly anxious to drop the topic. "You've convinced me, yes, fine, the next room, then."  
Victor remained leasurely in his quite sturdy chair, but Reed, though he moved to stand, did not.  
In even greater anxiety, he wet his lip with his tongue, and asked with some desperation, "How?"  
Victor, of course, could not help but to indulge in a low chuckle at Reed's expense.  
"You will sit on the couch, and lean back, and undo the front of your breeches. That is simple enough, yes?"  
"I dress myself every day, Victor," he said with consternation, though the brief hesitation on his face revealed that he, like Victor, flashed back briefly to the period of his great illness in December. Neither comfortable to speak of that time and its unfamiliar activities, they moved on quickly.   
"When you are exposed, simply grip, and all comes naturally from there." This time Reed missed the intended humor. Blast, he was not as clever as perhaps Victor was hoping.  
There was something still anxious in his eyebrows.  
"You have a great deal of confidence in me."  
"My man, it is a task learned by boys in secret, directly forbidden them by authority figures. No one is taught how to do it - it will all be clear to you in due time."  
Reed stood with an irritated sigh, which did not hide that he was not irritated, but extremely anxious. He smoothed his hair, smoothed his shirt, and stopped very abruptly at the waist.   
"If you desire me to, I can stand by the door, and instruct you - if necessary."  
"That's something you'd be willing to do?"  
It had been another joke at his expense, but he was unwilling to pull back now and admit that; for Reed to feel humiliated and angry would accomplish nothing, and he felt some fraternal affection for him in this vulnerable moment, after all.  
"If - necessary, yes."  
"I would appreciate that."  
Reed paused, then abruptly left, walking down the hall, and shutting the door; Victor trailed back at a cautious pace, not entirely certain of the etiquette but certain Reed did not want him following too quickly.  
He gave Reed about a minute before he wondered if speaking was necessary.   
"Richards, are you- situated?"  
"Do you direct to me situate myself now?"  
Victor, internally, was kicking himself; he wanted to be moral support if required but he did not desire to give the man directions, or contemplate doing so.  
"Are you sitting and have you unbuttoned yourself?"  
He heard the sound of the couch creak and rolled his eyes discretely, although, alone as he was, discretion was not necessary.   
"Yes," Richards said quickly. The sound of fabric was almost irritatingly vaguely; Reed was already out of breath, perhaps from sitting so quickly when he had been apparently only idling, fool that he was.  
"Are you...." He trailed off, not entirely certain he wanted to go into this with any detail.   
"Am I? Unbuttoned, yes."  
"Are you hard, Richards?"  
There was a pause.  
Chagrin, he supposed.  
"You're angry at me again, really?"  
Damn the man.  
"Reed, are you hard?" he said, temper now rising.  
"I'm not. I- I don't know what to do, how do I make my... myself...?"  
His hesitation, in a man who was so rash and forthwright about sometimes the very stupidest thing, was almost precious in its rarity. Of course the man would only hesitate about something privately embarrassing, and nothing life or death related, like dashing off into a wet, freezing winter hellhole at night for a lost book.   
"Touch it, Richards."  
Ah, now the extending silence; Reed was embarrassed, believed him angry, and he, in fact, did sound angry. And was. He was, yes? On second thought, it seemed rather unkind and callous to be angry over a ridiculous thing. It was pathetic of Reed, and thus petty of Victor. He did not desire, in the greater interest of their working relationship, for Reed to forever associate masturbation with Victor's short temper; probably, it would lead to thwarted sexual maturation.  
He did not realize until this moment that he had been pressing both hands to the strong wooden door, listening minutely; he lowered his voice, though not so that it could not be heard, and said, with greater compassion, "I... require that you touch yourself."  
There was another pause, and briefly he wondered if he was wasting his time and began to feel angered again, when he heard a faintly strangled soft note and then a very choked up, "I don't believe I can do this."  
This did not tell Victor at all what was going on and what on earth Reed was doing. He chewed his lower lip in some consternation, shrewdly, then sighed shortly and said, "Do you need me to come in? To see what you are doing wrong, and correct you?"  
There was still no answer. Victor was starting to feel some anxiety of his own, about Reed's mental state, which was, after all, once the placid boring surface had been breached, rather startlingly delicate. "Richards? Reed?"  
After still no response, Victor cautiously, slowly turned the doorknob. There was no protest, so, cautiously, he entered. The couch was, of course, as ever, to his back, though he could barely see the top of Reed's head - good, this seemed to imply he had indeed leaned back as instructed, feet up on the footrest, long body relaxed, inclined. He crept closer, not sure when he intended to stop, waiting for a sign from Reed. His breathing was very short, and then he noticed he could hear Reed's. It was likewise short, and for a moment, thinking back on the harrowing December nights, he felt irrational panic flood him, for Reed sounded as though he were in a great deal of pain. Victor froze in place.  
"Reed, should I- should I come around?"  
"Victor, I can't do it, I can't- touch, it's just not-"  
He spoke in short, shallow, fearful-sounding bursts, and Victor, certain his footfall was audible, began to walk around to the end of the couch Reed did not occupy. He stood at the end, and glanced over.   
Reed had done as asked, his pants undone, though he could have given himself more space, perhaps; his posture could have been relaxed, but his body tensed and his face shone now; his eyes were shut very tightly and he seemed to be biting his lip. Of course tension and perspiration and all of these things could suggest concentration and pleasure, but Reed did not, overall, look to be enjoying himself. And Victor did glance downward then, and he was erect; but he could not bring his hand much nearer than the base of his erection; it lay on his thigh, nearly flat, pathetically curled toward his cock, but not touching.  
Victor sighed.  
"I see you, Reed, if you can bear that. Open your eyes."  
Reed did not at first, but did so quickly, at the same time as a quick, short inhale.  
"This is difficult for you, isn't it?"  
Reed was staring ahead, blinking quickly, trying to refocus himself. Victor could not quite look away from the movement of his hand - he attempted to stroke himself, and immediately halted. His hand dropped swiftly to his thigh, and then clenched. He could now see - he had come closer, ah, without realizing it - the half-moons of his fingernail indentations against his white thigh, and realized this pattern must have been repeated now several times. He was somewhat alarmed by this; he could see now, for all his smug boasts and contempt, that if Reed felt shame, it was shame he had to consciously fight, and Victor von Doom was not a man to comfortably scoff at the burdens of a man's subconscious, the thoughts entered into it in childhood, borne to adulthood like scars.  
"Reed, tell me what you want me to do. I can't - I don't know what I can do to help you."  
He sat beside him, unsure, for once, of his own weight; he carried his body much as it were a king's, but he was strangely aware of it and the space between himself and Reed's in a way that was somewhat uneasy. As he lifted his hand and touched Reed's shoulder gingerly, he realized with something of an internal wince that the source of said unease was likely his own erection. It was not uncommon for a man to become erect at inappropriate times, and sex matters were at hand even if the setting was forbidding.  
Reed shut his eyes, then looked over at him with a huff of breath.  
"I don't know. I....oooh..."  
He had returned to his pitiful attempt to master stroking, now, and was doing better than he had been a moment ago- strange, that Victor's presence improved this, yet not ghastly, all the same. Victor gripped his shoulder harder; it was easier to show support here than from behind a wall, then.  
"Ooh- Victor, am I-?"  
His eyes had passed from Reed's face to the red contours of his erection again, staring, blinking hard, then they returned to his face, watching him moisten his lips from chalk-white to pink and wet with a lizard-like flick of the tongue. Probably, he did not realize he'd done it, just a reflex, of nervousness or pleasure or both.  
"You are doing fine, Reed," he said, in a leisurely, firm voice. He did not want to rush him, and though the situation seemed quite urgent, he did not want to give that away to Reed just yet. He became aware of his other hand on his own knee, gripping quite tightly; then that the left was still on Reed's shoulder, and probably hurting him. Consciously he thought to relax his grasp, but sensed no change physically, and understood somewhat of Reed's own hand not doing as it was bidden.  
Just like that, he pulled it away from below his waist, and both of them gripped his own face. He moaned again, but it seemed agony, not the intention.  
"Victor, I can't do this- I don't know what's wrong with me-"  
The moment he saw the tight curl of his fingers he found both of his own hands reaching out to grip Reed's wrists, a lightning-fast reflex; he did not want the man to hurt himself. He pulled his hands down to his chest to be safe, to see Reed's face.  
"Reed, nothing is wrong with you- something's- it's been stolen from you, by your upbringing, but there is nothing wrong with you - of course you can do this, you can do much- you are a great man, Reed, this cannot conquer you-"  
Reed's eyes rolled beneath his eyelids, then opened immediately; he looked at Victor again. His wrists relaxed, just slightly, and he reached out - Victor did not stop him - for Victor, not touching him, but as though to confirm his presence.  
"You truly mean that-"  
"Yes, Reed; yes." He was alarmed again, but refused to show it. Rattled was a better word, perhaps. "Reed, I'm going to- here-"  
A bit impatient, perhaps, by his own emotional involvement now, he took Reed's hand firmly in his own, and began to guide it back downward.  
"I'll show you, and then.... you'll do it yourself. Here."  
His fingers closing over Reed's fingers - as long as his own, but thinner, as everything about him, suiting his somewhat prophetic name - he forced his hand to grip it, and felt a rather painful constriction of his own breeches as he did so, or perhaps at the shock of feeling, through his hand, his wrist, his arm, the slight, quick, panicked buck of Reed's hips.  
And hearing the sound Reed forced from his lips. He pressed his own in a very firm line; there was nothing funny or relaxed about this at all; it felt, in fact, very grave.  
"Do you understand it, Richards?" he asked, very, very slowly moving his hand along, pulling Reed's hand, careful to touch him himself minimally, not at all, if he could.  
"It's... it's difficult. It's just difficult."  
"Shhh, shhhh, Richards." Dimly he realized, kicking himself, again, internally, that there was no lubricant involved; that would make it harder. Casting about for an option, nothing but saliva came to mind. The harsh crudeness of spitting seemed like it would offend Reed, especially in this state; another thought entered his mind and dimly horrified him, though it would probably be vastly more soothing.  
Slowly, he removed his hand, then removed Reed's.  
"This... will make it less so," he said, leaning forward, then pausing, glancing at Reed's white and confused and frankly nearly terrified face, and spitting with as little revolting sound as possible, into his own palm. He'd touched himself - there was little to no difference touching another man directly - still he felt his own thigh quivering and felt it was with disgust as he smoothed it over Reed's cock.  
He felt his scientific partner's heartbeat as he touched him, as the pad of his thumb lingered on a pulsing vein, and - he sighed, the safest method of breathing, slow and controlled - rubbed it gently, spreading the saliva over the entire surface as best he could. Reed was calming now, or rather, the mood of frenzy that seemed to be coming over him was the expected kind now. There was something maddening about the redness of his mouth now, as his lips parted, and remained parted; he could see the barest amount of his chest beneath the collar of his shirt, and it heaved as he now took stronger breaths. He felt it run through his arm as he gripped Reed more tightly very suddenly, a very simple cause and effect; Reed gasped, and Victor gasped as well. Reed's hands, more gentle when handling Victor than himself, which was a sad thing to acknowledge and notice, touched Victor's arm, the forearm beneath the rolled up cuff of his sleeve, and his hand. There were veins on the back of it; he recognized Reed's fingers tracing over them, which seemed, faintly, embarrassing.  
Reed's eyelids lowered, an almost reverent expression - it was akin to a painting of prayer, as seen in the university chapel; his lashes, a black fringe, fluttered. Then he blinked twice, almost sleepily, and to Victor's enormous surprise, lifted his gaze with perfect clarity to Victor's.  
"Victor - Victor, thank you," he said quietly, with a long exhale. Victor was, for once, the stupefied one, a role he was unaccustomed to. He still held onto Reed's cock rather tightly, and Reed's hand covered his in return, touching its bones, the veins of his wrists, quite intimately. It was just as maddening as his coloring, which itself quickened; his lips were reddened and wet, his face flushed, eyes bright. As he realized he was staring back at Reed, he relinquished his hold suddenly.  
Just as suddenly, with a growl and a biting of his own lip, he took hold of him yet again, squeezing from base to tip, watching Reed go from startled to rapidly unable to draw breath, as surely as if Victor had delibered a quick, brutal punch to his solax plexus. Yet much sweeter was his tightening grip on Victor's arm, the other hand grasping his shoulder (the fabric of his shirt pulled tightly against his neck at Reed's careless clutching, but he found that he did not care).  
"You see now what a difference is made with lubrication," he said authoritatively. He released him again, uncomfortably shifting on the couch; impossible to deny now was his own sexual arousal. Fruitless, for he and Reed were men, and he had not even intended to touch Reed, but aroused nonetheless, and it was beginning to alter his temper.  
"Of course," said Reed, limp in all aspects but one very crucial one. "I should have thought of it."  
"Now, again," said Victor haggardly, leaning back where he sat. His mood was souring with the reassertion of reality; suddenly hot-blooded as he had not been in more time than he could think of he resented their isolation; even an unworthy woman might have been judiciously allowed to satisfy him, if she desired to.  
Reed's eyes, however, lowered almost curiously, then flickered up to Victor's again. His hand moved up Victor's thigh, and Victor blustered.  
"I don't need to be aided as you do."  
"But I could demonstrate what you've taught me," said Reed with a wan smile, sincere, as all actual expressions of emotion were from him, rare as they were; he had never learned artifice, or he might have shown it more often. "I didn't realize you were becoming..."  
He sought the aptest word, and to hush him before he voiced the embarrassing reality of the situation Victor resolutely took his cock again and began to pleasure him in all earnest.  
After a good, satisifying moment, watching Reed Richards squirm and moan and helplessly - aimlessly - fumble at the buttons of his breeches, Victor diversified his technique. Admittedly, this tactic had been gleaned from his own solitary experiences; to delay climax but intensify his enjoyment he would sometimes slow, and touch himself elsewhere or differently. As he slid his hands down the other man's thighs he felt their muscles tense beneath the skin with pleasure almost more than the Puritan Reed could bear. As they returned upward, he realized he was dry again, and had to think hurriedly.  
As woman had done this for him once; he thought it would be humiliating to place his mouth upon Reed's cock, but although he had instantly wetted the flesh he foudn it was not unenjoyable; the unique shape of the organ was almost seductive; the tongue moulded to it, it fit against the lips quite well. But far most rewarding was Reed's voice, a long, drawn-out moan. There was something primal in it. He called Victor's name, and his voice trembled to support the suspended note. Victor drew back to survey him, and returned to his task with both hands.   
Reed had begun to rock his hips - it was instinctive, just as Victor had promised - and the way he tilted his head back, with his shoulders collapsed, and his back arched, elongated his torso and exposed his tender neck. An anatomical study of his body in this posture would haev been intellectually and aesthetically stimulating, had more of his lean body been exposed. With a critical eye for detail, Victor worked harder, the subtler noises of the sofa beneath whining as Reed bucked his narrow hips against his hands an accompaniment to his increasingly vocalized responses. Victor had never heard such sounds from Reed before - civilized, even flat Reed Richards, whose moaning had been terrifying during his battle with grave illness. In just a few moments now, Victor was studiedly removing a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his hands, and, kindly, Reed's thighs, while Reed sank to the cushions and struggled for air.  
The lesson, as it were, was over; Victor felt he had taught more than he'd bargained to, but it had been worth the singular experience of commanding Reed's vulnerable body with nothing but his own firm hands. He could not entirely think through the immediate memory of it, of the lines of Reed's body as it contorted. He was still dimly pondering it, the alien whiteness of his skin against the dark burgundy of their sofa, when he felt Reed's hands deftly pluck and undo his trouser buttons, and Reed implored him to shift into a different position to better accommodate him.  
The day and possibly some of Doom's soul was lost in the soft and curious application of Reed's warm lips to his skin, the muscles of his abdomen, his thighs, Reed's long wihte hands eager to replicate what he had learned as ever. He lay across the length of the couch, head back, eyes shut, savoring as Reed (clumsily at first, then with the ardor normally reserved for the sciences) exploringly took his long-sufferingly swollen cock into his mouth and banished from Victor's mind all thought of university, urban life, or women (worthy or not); indeed, any thought at all. He thrust till his hips ached with the effort of it and was finally rewarded with the greatest of pleasure, and all was silence but their breath, out of sync, in the still, empty room.  
Hands still exploring - stocky waists and jutting hipbones respectively - they drowsed, and finally dozed, on the couch, for hours, till Victor caught a red glimpse of sky from the window, stood, and dressed wihout a word, going to prepare their supper as though nothing had happened at all. When Richards joined him, he spoke lightly of philosophy, and his face was as unreadable as ever.   
Long after sunset, Doom pulled on heavier boots and a heavy coat, and went outside to smoke from his pipe, broodingly, alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an au my friend Skazka came up with kind of loosely inspired by Frankenstein; we roleplay these two as early, pre-breakup and blamey science partners who maybe, possibly, are dating, but basically it's an 18th century gothic horror au and I wrote him some fic for it.


End file.
